Fighting continues between the Afghan Taliban movement and its opponents in the Panjshir Valley, which refuses to accept the Taliban’s return to power, amid reports that the movement’s fighters have taken control of the region.

The Taliban has not officially issued any statement about the control of the province, while the opposition fighters say they repelled a Taliban attack in the Darband heights on the border between Kapisa and Panjshir provinces.

“The Taliban reached the Darband heights on the border between Kapisa and Panjshir provinces, but they were repelled,” said Fahim Dashti, a spokesman for the Afghan National Resistance Front.

“The defense of Afghanistan’s stronghold is unbreakable,” Dashti added in a tweet.

Former Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who is in the Panjshir Valley, spoke of a “very difficult situation” in a video message published on Friday evening, stressing that “the resistance continues and will continue.”

Ahmed Masoud, who leads the resistance in the valley, considered that the Taliban “chosen the path of war.”

A Taliban source said fighting was continuing in Panjshir but progress had been slowed by landmines planted on the road to the capital, Bazark, and the provincial governor’s compound. The source added: “The demining operations and the attacks are taking place at the same time.”

Sources in the Pakistani and Afghan capitals said that the head of Pakistani intelligence, Lieutenant General Fayez Hamid, flew to Kabul on Saturday. The schedule of his visit is not yet clear, but a senior official in Pakistan said last week that Hamid, who heads the ISI intelligence agency, could help the Taliban reorganize the Afghan army.

Politically, the source in the movement told Reuters that the announcement of a new government will be next week.
Taliban sources had previously stated that Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the movement’s founders, would lead the new Afghan government.

On the other hand, Al-Jazeera quoted Qatar’s ambassador to Afghanistan as saying that a technical team was able to reopen Kabul airport to receive aid, and quoted its correspondent as saying that domestic flights had resumed.

Quoting the ambassador, it stated that the runway at the airport was repaired in cooperation with the authorities in Afghanistan. She added that two domestic flights took off from Kabul to the cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar.

Kabul airport has been closed since the end of a huge air bridge led by the United States to transport its citizens and the nationals of other Western countries and Afghans who helped the West. By the end of the operation, the last American soldier withdrew from Afghanistan after a twenty-year war.

On Saturday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, discussed with Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

This came during a meeting between them in Doha, where the UN official is in Qatar for an unannounced visit, according to the official Qatar News Agency.

According to the agency, the meeting reviewed “the relations of cooperation between the State of Qatar and the United Nations, and the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.”

The two sides also discussed “the existing coordination between the State of Qatar and the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs.”

Al-Thani affirmed his country’s support for international humanitarian efforts, and its commitment to cooperating with the United Nations regarding humanitarian affairs.